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blog: A Musician’s Wage

This is the typical breakdown showing how much income musicians can expect from selling a CD. It’s pretty scary, and the story gets worse when you look at figures from streaming websites such as Spotify, or sales from iTunes.

The average royalty paid out by Spotify to an artist is $0.006 per stream. That may add up for Bruno Mars or Rihanna, whose music is featured on the Top Lists on the home page. But it’s definitely not enough for any other musician to make a living from!

What’s worse, is the Australian radio broadcasting industry makes over $500million per year – but record labels only see around 0.05% of this revenue. From that tiny percentage, the labels then pass on a smaller percentage to artists. This is great for artists like Taylor Swift and Katy Perry – because FM radio stations absolutely smash their songs. But how about the local Aussie acts who barely get played? They can forget about making any significant revenue from radio, iTunes, Spotify, Pandora or even the old-fashioned way of selling CDs.

It’s a sad thought because the writers, singers, guitarist, drummers and producers who spend countless hours perfecting their craft are being robbed of what’s rightfully theirs. Does Spotify really deserve over 99% of revenue generated by each song? Surely no one could agree the streaming service is worthy of such a gigantic cut!

Nowadays, the main source of income for a musician is touring. It’s a hard slog organising tours, securing venues, paying for advertising, paying for flights and accommodation, scoring interviews for promotion, creating the merchandise and rehearsing for hours and hours on end! So PLEASE if you love a band, why not head down to the local pub next time they’re in town? Not only will you have the chance to watch an amazing show, but you’ll be supporting the artists who have written your favourite songs!

The music industry is one of the oldest in the world, and I wouldn’t want to live in a world without it! But we have to support our favourite artists in this changing industry, because slowly but surely, the industry is being monopolised. Don’t get me wrong – I find Taylor Swift’s songs catchy as all hell, and sing along to them in the car! But I’ve given smaller acts a chance, and their lyrics resonate with me in exactly the same way. Their vocalists are just as talented, their production just as flawless and their creativity and artistry is even more inspiring than what I could ever find in the Top 10 list on iTunes.

Music is beautiful and means something different to everyone. It’s not the easiest job to write music – making your innermost thoughts and feelings available to the world! (and then making them available to download on iTunes worldwide!) So let’s keep good music alive and give the talented artists out there an opportunity to create it!!!

That was my little rant for the day! haha

Love always and always (and thank you for your support guys – means the absolute WORLD to me!!!)